It’s hard to name a species — and even harder to rename one

How does a blind cave beetle end up being named after a Nazi dictator? Or a fossil after a famous British broadcaster? 

There is no one answer because the process of naming species — for both scientific and common names — is complex and inconsistent and sometimes produces names that, over time, become offensive. 

Here’s what you should know about how species are named — and occasionally renamed:

Why do species have both scientific and common names?

Many species, like the Slovenian blind cave beetle, have multiple common names across different languages and countries. The problem with multiple common names, however, is they can be very confusing, especially for researchers who need to understand exactly which species is being discussed in a scientific paper. 

In 1753, Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus came up with a solution: a Latin-based naming system that could be universally applied.

Linnaeus tried to classify all living things (and rocks, too) into groups. From the broadest to the most specific, his classifications were kingdom, class, order, genera and species. 

Today, parts of Linnaeus’ system have been modified or junked, but most species are still formally referred to with a binomial scientific name: its genus followed by its specific name. 

For the Slovenian blind cave beetle Anophthalmus hitleri, the genus name is Anopthalmus (which applies to many ground beetles native to Europe) and the specific name is hitleri, named in 1933 by an Austrian collector who admired Adolf Hitler (the dictator later sent him a thank-you note). 

Scientific names serve as universal anchors so researchers anywhere in the world can communicate with one another about a certain species without having to worry about confusing one species for another.  

“Standardization is an essential thing for anything, especially in cases where you need to communicate things clearly over time,” explains Douglas Yanega, assistant editor of the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, a publication of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, or ICZN. “The stability of the name is extremely important because science is not just what we do today; it links tremendously to things that have happened in the past, and the only solid link that we have is the name of the thing.” 

What’s the ICZN and what does it do?

It’s the international scientific group that since 1895 has been responsible for assigning scientific names to animal species — but not plants, fungi, bacteria or viruses, which are covered by separate codes of nomenclature. 

If there are competing scientific names, the ICZN comes in and decides which of the names should be accepted. That’s what happened with the Western Hemisphere mosquito Culex affinis, which is now officially known as Culex affinis Stephens (1825). In this case and most others, the general rule for it is that the oldest name wins.

The ICZN has no authority over common names, though, which arise from usage in particular locations, which is why Danaus plexippus is known as the monarch butterfly in North America but the Wanderer Butterfly in Australia. Nor does the ICZN have any authority to enforce its decisions; it is an arbitrator, not a police force.

How are species named, then?

The ICZN has elaborate rules to govern the process. The three principal steps, Yanega says, are determining whether something is a unique species, making sure the species has not been previously named, and then preparing and publishing its formal description, including its new name.

Those steps may sound simple, but in practice, each has its own challenges. To decide whether something is a unique species, for instance, specialists in taxonomy rely on multiple lines of evidence, including both physical characteristics (for example, dolphins are mammals instead of a fish) and DNA, which is scrutinized for genetic similarities.

Then comes the trickiest part: to determine whether a species deemed as new really is new. Often, it’s not. “It could be very embarrassing to get this wrong, and people do get this wrong all the time,” notes Yanega.

The Asian giant hornet is a case in point. It has been “discovered” and thought to be new seven times,  which means researchers were wrong six times. The first name came up in 1852, when a man named Frederick Smith named it Vespa magnifica, now the official name. But in 1857 a different self-proclaimed discoverer named it Vespa japonica. The same thing happened in 1871 (Vespa bellona), 1903 (Vespa magnifica var. latilineata) and three more times.

If a species really is newly discovered, then the person proposing the name must prepare and publish a formal description. That’s where the ICZN’s rules come into play. Yanega compares the group’s protocol to a pre-flight checklist that must be fully completed before a naming can proceed. Any new name also has to meet certain technical criteria. For example, it can only use letters from the standard alphabet, with no special characters or punctuation. 

Where do species names come from? 

All sorts of places. Some of the most common sources of names are geographical references (such as Alces americanus for moose) and tributes to people — also known as eponyms. 

There’s a barnacle named after Darwin (Regioscalpellum darwini), a fossil named after UK’s most famous broadcaster (Attenborosaurus conybeari) and even a small, blind amphibian named after Donald Trump (Dermophis donaldtrumpi).

What kinds of names can be problematic?

A scientific or common species name can be troublesome in multiple ways, according to the Better Common Names Project initiated by the Entomological Society of America. It might include a derogatory term like gypsy moth (now known as the spongy month because “gypsy” is an ethnic slur for the Romani people). Or it might include an inaccurate geographic reference like the Scilla peruviana, which is actually native to the western Mediterranean region, not Peru. 

Many scientific names have also replaced worthy Indigenous names, as with Lady Amherst’s pheasant, originally called “white mountain chicken” in Chinese. Other names can have a more sinister effect, as when the Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica) reinforced anti-Asian attitudes in the early 20th century, when they became a metaphor for Japanese people as foreign invaders who must be exterminated.

Some names can even help determine the fate of a species. Because it’s named after Hitler, for instance, the Slovenian blind cave beetle is prized and hunted by Neo-Nazis. This then caused serious problems as the collectors have driven down the beetle population to near-extinction levels. 

So how are problematic species names changed?

It’s not easy. Even when there’s general agreement that a name is inaccurate or offensive, changing it can be very difficult — especially if a substitute term is not well positioned to replace it. 

Without a new name immediately in place, “it was very disruptive for a lot of people who are communicating about [a species] daily. It’s like we’ve put them in a tough spot because we put a bad label on it, but don’t have any replacement,” says Joe Rominiecki, a spokesman for the Entomological Society of America. 

For common names, changing the widely used name is difficult but not impossible. Some successful examples are the jewfish, which was petitioned in 2021 to be renamed into the Atlantic Goliath grouper. Another example: in August 2020, the American Ornithological Society renamed the bird “McCown’s longspur” into thick-billed longspur, since John McCown was a Confederate general who supported slavery. 

Changing scientific names is even harder. The ICZN went on record in 2023 arguing that renaming animals solely because they are culturally offensive would “disrupt” the group’s goal of long-term consistency. Instead, scientific names tend to be changed only when a species is subdivided or reclassified, which is why problematic names like A. hitleri have persisted.

Yanega also points out that views on what is offensive change over time. “Virtually, no one has ever published a name that was offensive at the time it was published,” he says. 

Some taxonomists now argue that species shouldn’t be named after people at all because it suggests humans are superior to other living things. “It’s a species that has been evolving for hundreds of years without human intervention, and we should consider it sacred,” says Richard J. Ladle of the Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil, adding that the underlying principle for species naming should be to “respect nature.”